These scripts are written to run on a Linux / Unix system. I have no interest in Windows systems. I will ignore all requests to email you a windows binary.
If you're a Linux / Unix user that's genuinely tried to solve your own problem but still have questions, I'd be really delighted to respond and help you. Likewise, if you develop a windows equivalent of what I've done here, I'd be happy to hear from you and add a reference to your work onto my pages.
Knoppix Boot Server: How to set up a Knoppix boot server on a Fedora system
Trivial Knoppix customisation: How to trivially customise Knoppix, without all the hassle of replicating the entire Knoppix source tree.
Over the years, I've found Knoppix to be such a useful live distribution, I keep a copy in my briefcase wherever I travel. However the problem with Knoppix is that its a DVD – and it would be Really Useful if you could add a few of your favourite scripts into the Knoppix distribution to save you having to mount a USB stick each time you boot Knoppix just so you can access them.
If you read the wikis, you'll see that the traditional way of customising Knoppix is to replicate the entire DVD on the local hard drive, copy your customisations over the top of the original Knoppix file structure, then remaster. Every time there's a new Knoppix distribution, you need to re-customise and it takes a lot of effort.
I discovered a MUCH easier way.
If you've ever looked at the files on a Knoppix DVD, you'll see at the root of the tree there's a directory called /KNOPPIX. Inside this directory, there are two files called KNOPPIX and KNOPPIX2. These are compressed filesystems and are overlaid over one another to create the Knoppix live filesystem.
When booting, the Knoppix loader in fact searches for and mounts any file of the form KNOPPIX* . You can easily add your own KNOPPIX* files into this directory (for example KNOPPIX3) and it will be automatically loaded and overlaid on top of the standard KNOPPIX filesystem at boot. That is, you can replace any of the files or directories in the standard KNOPPIX distribution by creating letter-for-letter equivalent filenames in your own KNOPPIX3.
This page give you some hints and I've provided some scripts you can customise to help you get started.
Before going further, you will need to download an ISO of a Knoppix DVD or CD. If you don't know where to go looking for an image, google it. When you have the image, create a directory somewhere on your server especially for knoppix iso images (because you might have more than one version) and put the iso file in that.
Whether you remaster Knoppix or not, you can also 'easily' set up a boot server on your local network so you can PXE boot Knoppix (or any other Live Linux distribution) onto a local PC. You just need a working DHCP server, TFTP server and NFS server – which many people have already.
I'm not going to provide you with detailed instructions on how to configure these services. Google is your friend and you'll find many other pages of information helping you set them up. You'll find some example configuration files in this tarfile but I'm not going to explain configuration in a lot of detail. Go looking elsewhere if the information on my page here isn't sufficient to get you going.
You should create a temporary directory and untar the file inside the temporary directory. You'll find an /etc /KNOPPIX and /tftpboot directory. When installed, these should end up directly under the '/' directory on your server – but don't do that now!
The /etc and /tftpboot directories contain examples of files you can base your boot server configuration upon. You'll need to manually merge my example files with those already on your system. Don't under any circumstances just copy them over the top of your existing files or you'll likely end up with a hosed server!
If you want to boot Knoppix off your local hard drive (i.e. Offer a choice to boot Knoppix off the local hard drive from your grub boot configuration), the /KNOPPIX directory needs to be installed under the '/' directory too. I've included a script called re-create_hard_links in this directory which you will need to customise slightly (change the names of the default directories) before running.
There's a README file in the /KNOPPIX directory which sets out the steps in copying files from a live Knoppix system onto your proposes Knoppix boot server.
Start by downloading my KNOPPIX3 script and my Knoppix re-mastering script. And KNOPPIX3 source tree. Each of these should be put (and untarred) into the directory you're going to be using to hold your remastered master files – for example, a directory under your home account. Note that its important that you be logged in as root when you untar the files and edit your Knopix modifications. If you're logged in as a regular user, the group and ownership identities are going to get screwed up and your remastered Knoppix might not work.
Explore within the KNOPPIX3 source directory. You'll quickly catch on to how it works. Basically, you just re-create a directory tree under the source directory to mimic what you want under the root of your re-mastered live DVD. You can effectively add new files into the live file structure by creating directories and files under the source directory.
I'll draw your attention to the /etc/rcS.d directory. When the live Knoppix system boots, it will go through this particular directory and run the scripts starting with a capital S in numeric order. I've written a script called S61_Replace_Default_Files which I'll discuss further below, but has the effect of deleting files in the original live Knoppix distribution, and replacing these files with your own. There's also a file I've added called S98_local_customisations which you can modify to add local customisations to run at startup. You'll see I do stuff like prepare partimage to simplify running partimage over a network.
If you want to replace an existing file (that's already in either the KNOPPIX or KNOPPIX2 filesystems), I've developed a kludge. Put your replacement files under the /REPLACEMENT_FILES directory. When the S98_local_customisations script mentioned above runs, your replacements will be copied over the top of the original files.
Run the make_Knoppix_image.sh script (after modifying it to customise the location of the ISO and remastering directories on your computer). You'll end up with a My_Knoppix.iso file that you can burn to a dvd.
Enjoy!
Stefan Keller-Tuberg. April 2008.